Hello, I recently purchased some property that has an old Mercury mine on it. I went out exploring today and found some beautiful quartz crystals and this...... What is it? The quality of the pic is really poor but it's light blue with bubbles instead of crystals.
It's Chalcedony Quartz. Pretty but a very common rock.
Mercury ores are red. The fear monger article notwithstanding native mercury is not particularly dangerous or poisonous. Despite the implication in the article that the elevated mercury in those areas is due to mines the fact is that native mercury has always eroded from the earth in those mineralized zones and will continue to do so for the next several million years even if there had never been a mine. The quickest and surest way to reduce the mercury eroding from those areas is to mine the richest ores as soon as possible. If it's no longer in the earth it can't leach out.
Chalcedony indeed
I second what Claydiggin's said and add that raw mercury is very rare in nature as its mostly locked up with sulfur in a sulfide form~ pretty harmless. Enjoy your property looks like it has some mineral treasures.